AUTUMN // WINTER 2015

17/............

Returning to the UK for the first time in 2014, “punk-jazz in a Monty Python universe” WorldService Project (UK) match with “how urban jazz has to sound” Zodiak Trio (Germany) – and end each gig with a collaborative fuse of new works.

...[WSP are]“painfully danceable and cacofonically eclectic... punkrock energy and clicks, claps and shouts make the music demonic...if you go into the musical high, you stay begging for mercy.”
- Monika Okroj, Jazz Forum

“… [on Zodiak trio] this type of jazz, if it is jazz, is not for dark drinking-holes, but for large stadiums... it's just exciting for the listener. An absolute recommendation ...“
- fairaudio.de


October 13 – DARWEN, Number 39 – 9pm, £Free
39 Bridge St | Darwen | BB3 2AA | https://www.facebook.com/pages/Number-39-Hopstar-Brewery-Tap/100163583416336?sk=info

October 14 – CARDIFF, Dempseys – 8pm, £10/7
15 Castle Street | Cardiff |CF10 1BS http://www.jazzatdempseys.org.uk/ 07890158172

October 15 – LONDON, The Vortex, 8pm, £10/£8
11 Gillett St | Dalston| N16 8AZ | 024 7623 0699 http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/event/matchfuse-and-the-vortex-present-worldservice-project-zodiak-trio/

October 16 – BASINGSTOKE, The Forge @ The Anvil – 8pm, £15/8
The Anvil, Churchill Way, RG21 7QR Basingstoke http://www.anvilarts.org.uk/whats-on/world-service-project-zodiak-trio

October 17 – NOTTINGHAM, The Alley Cafe – 8pm, £Free
1a Cannon Court, Long Row W, Nottingham NG1 6JE
http://alleycafe.co.uk/

WSP (UK) + Zodiak Trio (DE) UK tour!

WorldService Project -  “Dazzling…big things lie ahead for them !!!”

müsik

🥴

jazz folk punk

Franz Ferdinand -No You Girls Never Know

Loro - Esperanza Spalding.

from ALL I CAN SAY.
 http://edaskew.bandcamp.com/album/all-i-can-say

Real Train

OUR DEBUT EP, 'F NOTE' IS NOW AVAILABLE TO LISTEN TO/PURCHASE AT toomanyzooz.bandcamp.com. CHECK IT OUT. 

F.W.S

Noda

Written by Tom McDermott. Piano performance by Scott Kirby.

Buy This Album

The Big Man (by Tom McDermott, performed by Scott Kirby)

A cover I did with a band and we decided to record it for our portfolios. Lead guitar and distorted guitar by me.

Love Rears Its Ugly Head (cover)

Celina

Download the Buttress's debut EP on Bandcamp here: https://thebuttress.bandcamp.com/

Funeral

Dream Sweet In Sea Major

I was initially approached by people who were running the film section at Bestival 2013 to perform a live soundtrack to the 1916 silent version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, directed by Stuart Paton. The film is a groundbreaking piece of cinematography, featuring as it does the first underwater sequences in a motion picture ever. The atmosphere and darkness of the underwater shots were a good fit for my general style, and I'd long been waiting to soundtrack a film so I jumped at the chance. My score is actually to a special edit of the film provided by the festival, and I performed it live to an audience of about six people at half past midnight immediately after playing my usual set in a different tent. Most of the work on the score was completed around the time I was doing the final mixing on TOTAL STRIFE FOREVER, so one of the pieces and quite a few of the effects I used on the album found their way onto the soundtrack as well. There are plenty of other departures here stylistically though. It was a big challenge for me creating this soundtrack, and while it is far from perfect, I do feel it's a good companion piece to TOTAL STRIFE FOREVER. Enjoy.

East India Youth - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (Excerpt)

Fire In A Pet Shop

The brutal-jazz power trio Schnellertollermeier doesn't screw around. Their uncompromising attitude is even apparent before you hear a note of their music -- it's right there in that deliberate tongue-twister of a name. Their fresh and uncompromising mix of jazz, punk, rock, sound and free improvised music, combined with great musicianship, interplay and a lot of energy, immediately hits the bullseye!

The three men behind the music, guitarist Manuel Troller, bassist Andi Schnellmann, and drummer David Meier, are all eclectic musicians. Schnellmann earned a degree from the Jazz School of Lucerne; Troller studied with British guitar legend Fred Frith and has collaborated with famed U.S. jazz drummer/composer Gerry Hemingway, among others; Meier's ability to bring his own voice into many different musical contexts has made him one of the most sought-after drummers of his generation and he has toured in most parts of Europe, as well as Russia, China and Japan.

In 2006, the three musicians, all around the age of 20, started the trio. Very quickly after their first concerts and their their 2008 debut album, Holz, they become something of a 'underground buzz' in Switzerland, leading to many further appearances. While Holz mostly featured traditional structures of composing revealing their eclectic influences (ranging from Tim Berne to John Abercrombie to Mr. Bungle etc.), Schnellertollermeier soon started working on new material, seeking a more personal sound, both compositionally and improvisationally. The result of this work, combined with the many concerts the group was playing, was their second album Zorn Einen Ehmer Üttert Stem, which was enthusiastically received critically and led to appearances in the most important clubs as well as festivals in Switzerland and Austria.

The group now had a more clear and more original roadmap they were traveling: the group's 'traditional jazz' elements were being subsumed by the brute energy from rock and experimental music, as well as improvisational soundscapes, minimal music and, finally, jazz in the modern, broad, experimental sense. Additionally the idea of a band sounding like one compact organism, with every element having its own importance and clear function, found its result on X. On X, the traditional function of the instruments - the classic power trio of bass, guitar and drums - have clearly been expanded, the bands energy as well as their compositional and performance qualities are even more intense and original than before. The songs, whether long or short, crushing or ambient, have absolutely no padding on them.

schnellertollermeier, "X" (excerpt) from 'X' (Cuneiform Records)

A demo from the new album i'm working on, 
I've recently finished the lyrics for this song, but this is the demo recording, and serves as rough sketch of the sound im trying to achieve.

let me know what you think

Take Away The Love (demo)

Le Rex, "Le Clic" from 'Wild Man' (Cuneiform Records)

"I...was stunned by his Hendrix meets late era Coltrane approach."
– Guitar Moderne

"Despite the boilingly hot drive...influenced by Cream, Lifetime, the Jimi Hendrix Experience (and perhaps more notionally the Pete Cosey/Reggie Lucas version of the Miles Davis group), there's a lyrical side to the guitarist’s playing as well...Excellent."
– Point Of Departure

"...out jazz with lots of sass and vigor...recalls the thornier side of the ECM Records catalog, especially the works of fellow Scandinavians Edward Vesala and Terje Rypdal. Björkenheim attacks the guitar the way the late great Sonny Sharrock did - like Coltrane and Ayler “attacked” their saxophones...yet blues is never very far away. There’s also the chunky focus of pre-Mahavishnu John McLaughlin...The way RB cross-pollinates between jazz and rock recalls fellow traveler Nels Cline, and the results are similar: Oblique swing, gnarly noise, predictably unpredictable, swell."
– Icon

Ecstasy is usually an all too fleeting experience offering the briefest glimpse at transcendence. But a heightened sense of consciousness and discovery manifests throughout Out of the Blue, the transporting second album by composer and guitar maestro Raoul Björkenheim and his extraordinary Finnish quartet Ecstasy.
Featuring the celebrated drummer Markku Ounaskari, the young and dauntingly prolific bassist Jori Huhtala and saxophonist Pauli Lyytinen, Ecstasy has forged more than a signature sound. Over the course of five years the musicians have honed a supremely interactive modus operandi marked by unstable textures, rapidly shifting meters, and emotionally charged melodic flights. Earthy, pristine and unmistakably Nordic, the music evokes the grandeur of Finnish landscapes and the hothouse intimacy of a tight-knit Helsinki scene where the musicians regularly convene to refine their volatile sound.

“I always felt there’s something special about having a band,” Björkenheim says. “An all-star session can be good too, but the thing I’m missing nowadays in jazz is really good bands playing together tightly, turning on a dime together, and especially improvising together.” True to Raoul's statement, this is a band effort, and like all great bands, the sum is greater than the parts. With 2 years additional experience together for this album, everything is upped from the last one: the compositions, the improvisations, the ensemble work and the solos!

Raoul Björkenheim / eCsTaSy, "Uptown" from 'Out Of The Blue' (Cuneiform Records)

This the an alternate take on This Is The Kit's "Magic Spell" recorded in Paris. 

It's also available on YouTube as a video (https://youtu.be/-ZaLLomkr2o) directed, created &  hand-drawn by Sam Wisternoff.

Buy This Is the Kit's new album Bashed Out:
- Bandcamp: https://thisisthekit.bandcamp.com/album/bashed-out
- iTunes: http://radi.al/BashedOutiTunes
- Amazon: http://radi.al/BashedOutAmazon
- Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/track/38cRRZuUiwoJ4J19a2UT2U

Kate Stables on 'Magic Spell:
"Magic Spell" is wee step in a more foot-tapping direction to what some people have come to expect from This Is The Kit. It’s the result of tours all crammed in the car and listening to re-releases of old African groove compilations and Hugh Tracey field recordings. That and a summer or two playing to festival crowds who were well-up for a bit of a dance.

One year at Shambala Festival in Northamptonshire the generator cut out right in the middle of "Magic Spell" and the whole audience started chanting the chorus and spontaneously formed a conga line. They proceeded to chant and conga their way around until they finally got the generator up and running again about 7 minutes later.

Musically, this song is particularly influenced by “Twer Nyame" by Ebo Taylor, a song with a magic spell of a trumpet hook that made it's altered way into the chorus of the song. “Twer Nyame" was an important soundtrack to the journey I sing about in “Magic Spell,” hence its use in the song.

What was that journey about? It’s the story of an unexpected adventure of self-discovery and growth between friends. But also about spells and incantations and other inexplicable things that make you feel a certain way, or perhaps even make things happen in reality. A melody. A rhythm. A nonsensical sentence spoken by a child. Words and notes and beats carry different magics and intentions.


Thoughts on the video from director Sam Wisternoff:

I wanted the video to have a distinctly organic, handmade quality which I associate with This Is The Kit’s music so I decided to draw everything by hand,  adding up, in the end to 1940 drawings.  An initial idea was to incorporate the kind of doodles you might draw absentmindedly while on the phone and for these to come alive and morph into characters while the texture of each sheet of paper is magnified, creating a cloud-like atmosphere.  

With colouring pencils, I traced over footage shot with the band, using the computer monitor as a light box, changing colour for each drawing to reflect the bouncy, technicolour feel of the track.  For the parts of the song which increase in density and energy, with the synth and distorted guitars, the colours are reversed which makes the paper texture become more energentic and stormy reflecting the dynamics of the song.

This Is The Kit "Magic Spell  (Paris Sessions)

album title: ONWARDS TO MARS!
release date: 15th of April 2016
release date UK: 22nd of April 2016
label: Asphalt Tango Records GmbH
14 tracks (7 instrumentals and 7 songs)
total playing time: 45 minutes
featured artist: Iulian Canaf (I put a spell on you)/ Puerto Candelaria & Koby Israelite (Fiesta de negritos)
special guests: Michael Metzler (perc) / Kai Schoenburg (drums)

track list:
1.  Crayfish Hora (comp. by Koby Israelite)
2.  Mista Lobaloba (comp. by Adrian Sical)
3.  3 Romanians (comp. by Koby Israelite)
4.  Trenul, masina mica (trad.)
5.  Out to lounge (comp. by Koby Israelite)
6.  I put a spell on you (comp. by Screaming J. Hawkins)
7.  Cucuritza (comp. by Koby Israelite)
8.  Doina pentru un frant inima (trad.)
9.  Bunica bate toba (comp. by Mihail Gincu)
10. Saints & Dates (comp. by Koby Israelite)
11. Un tigan avea o casa (trad)
12. The patron's funeral (comp. by Koby Israelite)
13. Hora strengarilor (comp. by Koby Israelite)
14. Fiesta de negritos (comp. by Lucho Bermudez)

All horn arrangements by Henry Ernst
Produced by Henry Ernst & co-produced by Marc Elsner
Recorded in Berlin (Germany), Medellin (Colombia), 
Bucharest and Zece Prajini (Romania)
Recorded by Alexei Turcan, Henry Ernst, Gabriel Vallejo C.
Mixed by Marc Elsner and Henry Ernst at Marx Audio, Berlin 
Mastered by Sascha "Busy" Bühren at Truebusyness, Berlin

Fully album released on CD, Vinyl and as download.

artist website: www.fanfare-ciocarlia.com
artist on facebook: www.facebook.com/FanfareCiocarlia
label website: www.asphalt-tango.de

Fanfare Ciocarlia / Onwards To Mars!

Tenor Saxophone – Andrew White
Bass –  Steve Novosel
Drums – Eric Gravatt
Piano – Gene Rush

from
Andrew White Quartet -Live At The New Thing In Washington, D.C.

Andrew White Qt.  Milestones II

written by too many zooz
produced by too many zooz 
co-produced by ivan jackson
recorded at studio trilogy in san francisco, CA
engineered by willie samuels and serge tsai
mixed by serge tsai at platinum sound recording studios
mastered by chris gehringer at sterling sound 


Warriors

Elegant, melancholic, sometimes menacing, with smoldering piano melodies, desolately whistling organs, and a jaunty jaw's harp loop; kissed by the golden Californian sun, or shrouded in gloomy, dreary fog: Sophia Kennedy is currently the most versatile composer in German pop music – not to mention the greatest singer. Her debut album "Sophia Kennedy" reveals her as a dramatic romanticist and distanced diseuse, as a deft lyricist and master of melody. In her eleven songs, she travels from doo-wop to dubstep, from classic crooning to breathless R'n'B, from Frank Sinatra to Beyoncé. Her talent for songwriting is deeply rooted in history, yet it seeks nothing but the present: both historically versed and timelessly beautiful at the same time.

Sophia Kennedy grew up in Baltimore. Upon arriving in Hamburg to study film, she instantly became a source of enchantment. On the single "Angel Lagoon", which she recorded in the autumn of 2013 with the keyboard-maestro Carsten "Erobique" Meyer, she sounded as lovely, enthralling and blasé like no other singer of the season. In the years that followed she mainly composed music for theater, feeling around for what would eventually become her own style: irony is not an important factor, it's more about appropriation and adaptation, and through effectively minimalistic means, to create space for the voice – for the singing.

Sophia Kennedy produced and recorded the album together with Mense Reents, best known for his work with Die Vögel and Die Goldenen Zitronen. Together they developed the spartan arrangements and electronic textures that determine the willfully dense sound of this album. Often, Kennedy's voice is the only instrument that pursues a harmonic development over the repetitive structures. Then she doubles and multiplies her voice and sings alongside herself in a choir. She shines with bold syncopation over a hobbling piano, as well as in the field of the melancholic lament that suggests a late Beach Boys ballad. This results in multi-dimensional, highly individual music, which easily escapes all the traps of inwardness: just as her lyrics unfold from seemingly simple wordplay to subjective confessionals without ever regressing into the euphuistic pathos of romantic self-reflection.

This is the first songwriting record to be released on Pampa Records, and yet "Sophia Kennedy" is perfectly at home on this label, which for almost a decade has been making the connection between tradition and modernity, avant-garde inventiveness and pop sensibility. One can detect different traditions and historical impressions in every track – yet you can forego all the analysis and simply enjoy the craftsmanship with which Sophia Kennedy creates an absolutely contemporary musical language from her knowledge of classic songwriting: "I want to take tradition to the limits, to where it becomes extreme," she says, yet it sounds so easy and not at all preconceived. The unheard-of refinement of this music lies in its apparent simplicity: "You just can’t be afraid," says Sophia Kennedy, "that it turns out to be pop music."

01 - Build Me A House

Track "Come Down Here and Say That" (ft. Lætitia Sadier) off the new album 'Mountain Moves' out 9/8/2017 on Joyful Noise Recordings.

Mountain Moves

Buy Album

Deerhoof - Come Down Here and Say That (ft. Lætitia Sadier)

Modern Studies - Supercool

Jane Weaver Releases New EP ‘The Architect’
Out October 27th On Fire Records

‘The Architect’ is available for pre-order now at http://www.firerecords.com/janeweaverstore

Tracklist:
1. The Architect
2. The Architect - Andy Votel's Brutaliszt 250Kg Readymix
3. Code
4. Element

“A perfect example of her motorik psychedelia” NPR

“Otherworldy synth-pop” Rolling Stone  

“A fascinating career with an album that melds cult cornerstones into a lean and thrillingly addictive slice of unearthly pop” Guardian 

 “Using motorik rhythms and ancient technology to create music that brims with urgency and originality, there is a real creative bravery at work here” Mojo 

‘With one eye on the dancefloor and another on those sprawling existential questions’ (The Quietus), ‘The Architect’ sees Jane Weaver evolving with an aero-lite melodicism, the drum heavy vivacious pop song evokes vivid images of early Modernist art, Archigram blue-prints with a rigid back-bone of Eames worthy construction.

Directly inspired by Hilma af Klint’s séances, spiritualism and the science of anthroposophy that formed the artist’s abstract paintings, Weaver finds herself in a transformative state channeling her inner spirituality, it’s place within her music and the cosmos. Shifting perspectives with her meditative vocal explorations and oneiric flow on ‘Code’. Eight-minute psych-pop opus ‘Element’ is richly melodic replete with pulsating analogue synths, unrelenting motorik rhythms and incessant beats. 

The perfect antidote to those longing for more music since the release of the critically acclaimed ‘Modern Kosmology’, the release features title track alongside unreleased new tracks and a special remix by Finders Keepers’ Andy Votel.

Jane Weaver and her band will be on extensive UK and Ireland tour from October with a number of special one-off live dates in Europe and festival appearances at this year’s Reeperbahn and Le Guess Who?.


Live Dates
05 Aug: Skeleton Coast Festival, Hoylake Parade Community Centre, Hoylake, UK   
26 Aug: Sea Change Festival, Totnes, UK   
22 Sep: Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg, Germany 
23 Sep: Liverpool Psych Fest, Liverpool, UK  
20 Oct: Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate, UK    
21 Oct: Simple Things, Bristol, UK   
22 Oct: The Haunt, Brighton, UK    
23 Oct: Arts Centre, Norwich, UK    
25 Oct: Quarterhouse, Folkestone, UK    
26 Oct: Islington Assembly Hall, London, UK    
28 Oct: Bodega Social Club, Nottingham, UK    
29 Oct: The Bullingdon, Oxford, UK    
31 Oct: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK    
01 Nov: Sugarmill, Stoke on Trent, UK    
02 Nov: The Cluny, Newcastle, UK    
03 Nov: Trades Club, Hebden Bridge, UK    
04 Nov: Stereo, Glasgow, Scotland    
10 Nov: Workmans Club, Dublin, Ireland    
11 Nov: Maple Leaf Club, Belfast, Ireland    
12 Nov: Le Guess Who?, Utrecht, Netherlands  
14 Nov:  AB, Brussels, Belgium 
16 Nov: Hafen 2, Offenbach, Germany 
17 Nov: Privatclub, Berlin, Germany 
20 Nov: Cafe V lese, Prague, Czech Republic 
21 Nov: Papiersaal, Zurich, Switzerland
24 Nov: Supersonic, Paris, France
28 Nov: Komedia, Bath, UK 
29 Nov: Hare & Hounds, Birmingham, UK 
30 Nov: O2 Ritz, Manchester, UK

Jane Weaver - The Architect

Still Feel.

Der erste Vorgeschmack auf unser neues Album!

Zodiak Trio / Fotoalbum

ZODIAK TRIO - Strich Zwölf

I DIDNT EXPECT THIS TO BLOW UP HOLY FUCK

LYRICS:

There i am!
There i am again!
I am the rot and the ache beneath your skin!
I am the angel sent down from above!
I am the cancers from your teeth and your body!
Praise be the heavens!
Praise me im the lord!

there i am, there i am again!

Back So Soon?

Nachteulen

The Donald Fagen Band - Live In Toronto 2006

The Donald Fagen Band - 101. Green Flower Street

Preview track from the album 'Fire in a Pet Shop'

Barmy Army

Preview track from the album "Fire in a Pet Shop"

De-Frienders

Change the F***ing Record

Number 9

Number 7

WorldService Project have been quietly achieving many exciting projects over the last few years; five critically acclaimed studio albums; appearances at some of the world's most thrilling festivals (in Tokyo, Berlin, Ljubljana, Hangzhou, Goa, Cork, Umea, Pune, Tampere, London, Shenzhen, Toulouse to name a few) and undertaking huge tours of Europe, the USA, China, Japan and India.
http://www.worldserviceproject.co.uk/

2020/21 saw WSP release their highly anticipated fifth album, 'Hiding in Plain Sight' on RareNoiseRecords and perform concerts in the UK, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria and the Czech Republic.